Foreign Invader
by Ninavask
Summary: A research station in the depths of Wormhole space researching alternative methods of Warp and Jump Drive technology is sent into lockdown as something goes wrong. An elite team of augmented soldiers are dispatched to deal with this delay. A one shot crossover between Eve Online and Warframe.


Low-Orbit - Renaissance - Origin System - J120442

"We are at Containment level Three." The pleasant Artificial Intelligence murmured over Dyson's inner-ear comm implant. In a sweet and non-threatening voice that belied the gravity of the words she had just said. Syllable had never had a containment order issued. Much less a level-karking-three.

"FORTIS teams," came commander Heiko Inaro's voice over the tac-net, "advance on research deck twelve. Security teams six and eight are in position to begin sweep and clear."

"Yes, Ma'am." Came the uniform reply from Dyson as he gestured for the rest of his squad to pick up the pace. The six of them were already at a dead run through the halls of the research station. Their augmented bulk thundered across the bulkheads with, Dyson was certain, all the subtlety of a Citadel Torpedo. Researchers and general staff had already been evacuated to their shelters, but it wasn't as if the research station had a large staff to begin with. It was small and isolated, and was not supposed to be working on anything particularly dangerous.

Then again if it weren't dangerous they wouldn't have been here just in case something did go wrong. That was what you used soldiers for, you put them in places they could be used. Especially soldiers like FORTIS.

Generation VII FORTIS soldiers were not in large supply, and certainly not your run of the mill marines. They wouldn't be put somewhere if there wasn't the chance of something going wrong. And not just slightly wrong but Containment level Three wrong. Yet why now? Six months at Syllable and not once had there even been a Containment level Five call, let alone level three. So why now? What could have possibly gone wrong now but not at anytime over the last six months?

Dyson knew he wasn't paid to think about those sorts of questions. Not that he wasn't paid well, being FORTIS gave you a sizable monthly stipend in ISK. Not the local currencies most soldiers were used to. That went a long way to keeping one's mouth shut, and keeping your questions to yourself.

The response team darted into the bow cargo lift and Dyson slapped the control pad on his way by. The six of them took up position behind crates and various materials that had abandoned when the alarms had sounded. Each armed and armored to the teeth with the latest equipment available in the Origin system. The logo of VaskTech visible as a silvery VT on each armored shoulder. The same symbol that adorned many of the crates in the elevator, Dyson noted.

Again, questions he was not paid to ask.

"This is blue actual, we've reached the bow cargo elevator. Descending to deck twelve." Dyson reported into his comm. Opening and closing the channel with a thought. The response was immediate from the commander.

"Confirmed blue team. Red team has reached the stern cargo lift. Begin sweep and clear at your discretion, blue actual." Came commander Inaro's voice.

"What are we looking for, Commander?" Dyson tried as he felt the lift jolt into motion and descend the three floors it needed. He gestured for two members of the team, Anton and Keelia, to take up point and the two nodded and moved to stand beside the thick cargo doors. The kind of doors that were designed to withstand small arms fire and could act as airlocks in the event of a hull breach.

"That is need to know at this time, blue actual. Assume all non-FORTIS contacts on research deck twelve to be hostile." Came Inaro's sharp reply, and Dyson's brow furrowed.

"What about security teams six and eight?" He asked. There was a short pause as the team waited for the cargo doors to open. When they did not Dyson waved their team's heavy, a hulking augmented monstrosity by the name of Benjin, towards it. Dyson turned away as the man bent to the task of forcing open the doors.

"We've lost contact with security teams six and eight, assume them terminated. Be careful blue actual, command out." The line closed before Dyson could find a non-insubordinate response and he ground his teeth in his helmet. When he turned Dyson found Benjin had gotten the lift doors open, but when they opened the inner doors that would lead out to the level had not. The huge man was clawing at the metal but with no luck.

"What's the deal?" Dyson snapped and Anton was the one who responded. The lithe assault officer glanced at him uneasily, his posture on guard.

"It was opening sir, then it slammed shut and we can't open it anymore. Overrides on the lift control aren't working either." He said and Dyson frowned and slapped at the elevator console only to received a negative beep. He cursed quietly and glanced towards Keelia, their tech specialist.

"Nothing?" He asked and she shook her head.

"Not during a containment lockdown, there's no way to override it." She said, but before Dyson could curse and contact command she spoke up. "That said level thirteen has a stairwell. All the research decks are linked together via their own stairwells to allow easy movement between research levels. The decks are only isolated from everywhere else by the lifts.

Dyson frowned a moment, a frown none of them could see through the steel of his ballistics helm, before he nodded.

"Fine, level thirteen then. Let's get moving." He said as he slapped the elevator command and Benjin stepped back from the door. The elevator door reasserted itself as Dyson stepped away again.

"Blue actual to Command. Level twelve's doors are sealed and we cannot override them, we are moving to level thirteen and will use the access stairwell to reach level twelve." He reported and waited for a response.

"Confirmed, blue actual." Was the terse response of not commander Inaro but of a tac-net AI confirming she had received the command, but did not wish to actually respond to him herself.

Dyson would have cursed in annoyance when the level thirteen doors slid open. He gestured for Anton and Keelia to take point instead and gave the order to move out.

They all but ran through the empty hallway beyond. Guns up and at the ready, their orders were to sweep and clear level twelve, not level thirteen, but for safety's sake Dyson ordered the last two members of their squad to check each room they went by. Tammen and Kole burst through sliding doors and would confirm rooms were clear and then would rejoin the group at the intersection ahead.

It turned out they were not the ones to find the first signs of what had gone wrong, instead it was Keelia.

"Squad Captain!" She called, and Dyson could see she was tracking something with her eyes. "Take a look at this!" She called and Dyson jogged to catch up and followed her gaze. There was a long gash in the bulkhead several meters long and several inches deep. It took Dyson a moment to realize they weren't just one, but multiples. All around the wall at seemingly random angles. They carved through the metal as if it were plastic, the cuts impossibly smooth.

"What the hell did this?" Dyson asked but Keelia had no answer, nor did Anton or Benjin. When the latter saw the cuts in the ground he frowned and bent to get a better view. His hulking augmentations ground and groaned as they adjusted to his weight shifting.

"Even more precise then a laser cutter in a factory." The big man declared and Dyson frowned. He indicated for them to move on, headed towards the stairwell on one side of the intersection. Anton and Keelia first with himself, Tammen, and Kole covering the other hallways with their rifles. Benjim however seemed to have forgotten their sense of urgency, studying the cuts.

"Benjim." Dyson hissed, and then again when the big man didn't respond or move.

"So strange... this metal is reinforced... must have been a fullerene edge and-"

"Benjim! Move soldier!" Dyson roared and suddenly the huge man shot straight up from his inspections, impossibly fast for someone that large. He nodded curtly and rumbled towards the steps. Dyson behind him with Temmen and Kole taking up the rear.

The twin sliding doors to level twelve were already open when they reached them. One of the doors was attempting to close to comply with the containment protocol, only to fail each time as the door detected an obstruction and retreated. A body lay face down there in the doorway. The black and silver uniform of security personnel was stained red with blood along the midsection. When Anton rolled the body over to inspect it, he sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. The security woman had been cut from hip to shoulder with a blade of some kind.

"Dead." Anton announced needlessly, and Dyson grunted and gestured Kole forward. The short man ducked low and inspected the wound, confirming Anton's words. The others took up positions at the center of the crossroads on level twelve, and for the first time Dyson noticed the ruin around them.

All three halls leading away from the stairwell were filled with the debris of battle. More of the strange gashes in the floors, walls, and ceiling. This time with the signs of gunfire. The scent of burnt ozone from laser and hybrid weapon fire. There was a haze of smoke in the air from the fire of heavy munitions within the relatively small confines of the hallways.

As Dyson looked down the hallway to his left the report of gunfire came from the right hall and Anton shouted in alarm. Dyson spun only to see an empty hallway with more of the smoky haze filling the air. He sucked in a breath of filtered, clean, oxygen and barked orders.

"Anton, Keelia!" He barked and gestured as he did. "Advance in that direction. Whatever is lose is clearly dangerous. Benjin, have that arc-gun ready." He ordered, receiving nods from the three before he added to Anton and Keelia again. "If Benjin says hit the deck, hit the fucking duck and cover your head. If he has to fire that monster over you best to be as close to the floor as possible." He explained, and surely the two knew this already but they bobbed their heads and issued an understood, then the three set off down the hall.

"Same as before Temmen and Kole!" Dyson called back to them. "We're rearguard, you two check the rooms we pass and I'll watch the hall." The two nodded as the six of them rushed down the hall and gave cursory checks of the rooms. Pursuing the sounds of gunfire.

"Blue actual to Command. We are hearing gunfire on level twelve and going to investigate. Is Red team engaged?" Dyson asked as he followed along with the squad. He watched Kole duck into a door on the right. With standard marines such sweep and clear tactics would be done as a team. Each marine would stack on a door and burst in to cover the room as quickly as possible.

With FORTIS marines the same effect could be achieved with a single man. Reacting faster then any standard marine could hope to. It had been proven time and time again a single FORTIS Marine could outperform most standard marine forces in the cluster. FORTIS units were decidedly non-standard, after all. The discipline of a special forces unit with the augments and equipment of DUST marines.

No reply came from command, and Dyson cursed low as he listened to the sounds of gunfire. They had to move carefully and watch for an ambush, but briskly enough to assist if the fight was going poorly for their own side.

"Clear!" Came the twin shouts from behind them and Dyson and the two rearguard moved on, catching up to Anton, Keelia, and Benjin as the two reached a three way intersection. The sounds of gunfire drifted from the right, and the unit charged right down the short hallway into a large open floor-plan laboratory.

The twin sliding doors that had led into the laboratory had been locked and sealed from the look of it for the containment. The doors had not opened, so much as been blown apart by... whatever had gone through. One of the heavy airlock doors remained on it's track. Part of the metal melted and burned away as if from a great heat. The other lay inside the lab. Smoking and smoldering as the metal popped and clicked as it cooled.

"Eyes up!" Dyson snapped and he received confirming grunts from the three in front. They passed into the laboratory in a well disciplined rush that would have made Dyson's Caldari drill sergeant proud. They flushed into the room and arrayed themselves in assault format as they took in the scene.

The room looked as if a storm had blown through. Dyson caught a glimpse of a black and silver armored FORTIS marine as the man took cover behind a mount of equipment on the far side of the room. He was taking cover from what, to Dyson's eyes, was a slender silvery shape of a man with a tall conical head trimmed in deep gold metal. The figure held a long slender pistol in one hand and fired thrice into the soldiers cover before he disappeared.

It took Dyson's mind a moment to comprehend what he had just seen, and even his discipline faltered. The slender shape was just gone, an empty space of air where it had-

There was the loud sound of metal on metal and Dyson turned to find the FORTIS marine who had taken cover was in the air. The silver shape behind them with a long curved blade protruding out the front of the Marine's armor. He seemed just as surprised as Dyson to see the blade there and dropped his weapons as both of his hands reached down and grabbed at the blade. As if to hold it in place.

The silvery shape withdrew the sword and as the soldier crumpled in one smooth motion it removed his head. The blade sheered through the pauldrons and gorget of the armor he wore as if it were made of paper. The armored head thudded across the machinery as the figure seemed to swing the blade and return it to a scabbard at their hip in one fluid motion.

It then turned and stared directly at Dyson.

Well he assumed it did, he couldn't actually tell where the eyes were. Or if that was a helmet, where the visor was. That did not matter he realized, and a sudden panic spread through him even as he barked the orders.

"Open fire! Open fire!" He heard himself ordering, even as he switched his plasma rifle to automatic fire and sent blue-white bolts of light spewing across the machine the silvery thing stood behind. The others joined in barely a heartbeat behind Dyson, and soon enough the machine and a good portion of the wall had become little more than scorched slag. Chunks of super heated metal sloughing off the wall to the ground.

There was no sign of the thing however until Anton shouted. "Left!"

Rifles spun and a silvery blur flew up amidst the support struts of the labs cavernous ceiling. In the floor layout for the prefab used to make this station, the room had probably been a tertiary cargo bay. Which was good as it gave great open floor space, and gave security teams good lines of sight even after it's transformation into a lab. Now however that open space seemed a disadvantage, as the silvery shape seemed to leap from strut to strut with impossible speed. The sounds of metal groaning under extreme stress audible with each jump.

After the initial fusillade the team had switched their weapons to semi-automatic fire. The report of weapons, and the sound of the rounds impacting against hull and structural supports and not even seeming to come close to the target filled the room. Everyone was trying to take precise shots and lead the target, only to miss and fail. All except Benjin, who had trouble tracking the shape and was relegated to charging his arc-gun and waiting for a chance to let the plasma fire loose.

He got his chance as the shape suddenly sprang towards them. The slim curved sword in one hand as it closed impossibly fast.

"Down!" Benjim roared and everyone was already on the move diving for cover. Ostensibly because he had ordered so, but more likely to simply get out of the projected landing area. There was an electrical zap and an explosive boom that deafened Dyson, even through his helm and the arms protecting his head. The magnetic feedback of the Arc-Gun's firing screwed up his sensors. Artifacts and glitches appeared in his vision as he tried to spring back to his feet. He turned to check on the others and frozen when his eyes found the pixelated shape of Benjin.

The silver thing, the contact, hung from Benjin. It hung from the hilt of it's sword, which it had rammed down through the top of Benjin's helm. Dyson watched as the thing hung for a moment from the motionless augment, and then it seemed to hop and then pull down, hard, on the blade.

Dyson watched in dumbstruck horror as the curved sword ripped it's way out through the back of Benjin's body. The blade glistened wet and red, but remained unharmed as the figure swung it. The blood splattered to the bulkhead as it sheathed the weapon, and stepped aside as Benjin's body fell forward. Rent from neck to mid-back.

Above and behind the figure, where Benjin had released the full horror of the Arc-Gun's power, was a brilliant orange gash in the ceiling. Metal dripped wet and molten from the level above, where the metal had not been atomized in the blast. As Dyson watched the figure looked up towards that gash, and seemed to regard it for a moment. Only for it's attention to be drawn away when gunfire erupted as Anton collected his wits and unleashed a torrent of plasma fire.

There was already a shockingly long list of impossible things that Dyson had seen today. That list only seemed to rapidly grow larger as the the contact began to deflect the karking plasma rounds.

Oh… great. Dyson thought even as he brought his own rifle to bear on the invader and switched it to autofire.

The security cam in Lab 8112 devolved into digital static when the arc-gun engulfed the ceiling in plasma. Automatically commander Inaro switched to a secondary camera that had been situated on the far wall from the fighting. It only offered a slightly obscured view of the contact and blue team. She watched as the thing spun the "sword" in it's hands and deflected plasma rounds as if they were… shit she wasn't sure what was as easy as the way that thing made it look.

Even when sergeant Dyson and Private Keelia joined in on the firing, the thing seemed to have no issues. It's arms and blade moving impossibly fast. Plasma rounds bounced off the walls and ceiling around it where they sizzled impotently against the metal. The rounds payloads defunct after making contact with the bladed weapon.

Commander Inaro was not exactly sure what was happening, beyond the clear and obvious fact that containment could not be maintained. She opened the Neocomm channel she had been communicating with the Director since the beginning of this "incident" and tapped out a simple message.

Containment is failing.

There was a short pause, then the notification that her superior was responding.

Escalate to containment level one. Pacify the facility.

Inaro frowned as she studied the words, even as with one hand she was already preparing the action. Passing through several layers of clearance codes for the tiny station's control systems. She was hesitant, but quick to respond to his suggestions as ever. It was why she still lived, after five years.

Are you sure, sir?

She asked, just to confirm. She wanted confirmation before he changed his mind.

Drop it.

Came the immediate reply, and Heiko Inaro sighed. She double checked that the research station's computers, the ones that were still online, had already uploaded their data to the network. Then from her desk in the VaskTech security office above Indigo City, she began the process of activating the station's orbital maintenance thrusters. She set them to burn retrograde until there was an atmospheric reentry warning in twenty minutes.

Inaro confirmed the trajectory and sighed as she frowned at the security feed. The silvery shape had already executed most of blue team, and was bearing down on Dyson Bailey. The later had a novaknife out in one hand, in a basic knife fighting stance as he growled at the contact.

Commander Inaro felt a pang of disappointment. Dyson and his squad had been a model FORTIS squad. A good mixture of specialties with a commander who kept his head under pressure. They were a very efficient team, it was a shame to waste them so needlessly. FORTIS troops weren't clone soldiers. They weren't expected to be expendable. However the director had this unfortunate habit of using his soldiers up at an alarming rate. They were expected to perform at nearly impossible levels, and when they did not it only meant a new batch of updates would be sent out along the FORTIS generations to improve capabilities.

Inaro watched as the silvery thing toyed with Dyson. It had appeared on level six in a flash of light that had left most of the cameras static. It had taken nearly thirty seconds for the alarm to be raised. The thing was unrealistically fast, impossibly so for something of it's mass. She had an AI compare the movements the cameras reported and it had reported numbers that seemed nonsensical.

The silvery shape was, ostensibly, organic. There were heavy traces of metal and a magnetic based shielding around it that allowed it to shrug off or ignore most shots. Even the novaknife was not actually making contact with the thing when it simply let Dyson swing at it. According to the AI the thing was able to throw itself at speeds of up to sixty miles per hour. It left gravimetric and electromagnetic trails that played havoc with the sensors, and it could swing it's weapon several times faster than the speed of sound.

There was the furious sound of Dyson trying to strike the silvery construct, and it parried the blows and dodged out of the way. It seemed to dance away after one last furious exchange, and then bowed. Removing the top half of what she had imagined must have been a helm, and it bowed. Machinery glimmered and spun beneath the "hat" it had removed and Inaro frowned.

She heard Dyson curse in anger at being played with, and watched him charge the thing. She imagined it was some suicidal last attempt to achieve something, as instead of stabbing at it he tried to tackle the contact. His arms thrown wide as if to embrace it around the middle.

Inaro watched as the thing removed his right cybernetic arm in a shower of sparks. It ducked his left them removed that as well. In one fluid motion it took both legs and left Dyson maimed, skidding across the floor on his armour. The man was screaming in fury when the creature stepped up and planted the tip of the blade in his throat.

Inaro sighed, she had seen enough. Already the station was warning of upper atmospheric friction on it's shielding. She left the security footage running, and urged the AI to track the construct as it moved through the facility.

It was searching for something, Inaro had noted. She wasn't sure what, but she hoped it never found it. As the station struck the upper atmosphere at speeds enough that even the internal stabilizers were overtaxed, she watched the thing seemed to struggle. Lights flickered, and the security cam became static, then was replaced with a camera drone view from somewhere nearly barely fifty kilometers above the station's entry point.

An Orthus-class cruiser sat conspicuously off to one side between the camera drone and the incandescent streak of light. It was so close to the atmosphere the Orthus was coated in a brilliant glow of silvery blue-white shields as high altitude particles bombarded it.

There were several launches from the Orthus and Inaro watched the missiles disappear into the contrail of the descending station. It was followed after several moments by the streak in the atmosphere becoming several dozen streaks as the station broke apart and descended upon one of Renaissance's oceans.

Inaro turned to the neocomm channel to see a single reply from her director before the note that he had logged out from the chat.

Just to be sure.

Inaro sighed and closed the footage, then began the process of getting the cover story out to the Origin news system. A tragic accident involving the station's orbital maintenance thrusters after a routine evacuation drill of the facility resulted in the deaths of thirty seven VaskTech workers, and another twenty security officers and support staff.

Recovery teams would need to be coordinated, those that participated in the Origin cloning programs would need to have their memories examined. What had been just another day had quickly escalated to a mountain of work that needed to be done about an hour ago.

Somewhere below on Renaissance, the molten fragments of the tiny research station impacted at several times the speed of sound into ocean water. Sending up clouds of vaporized water. Anything that was onboard was either dead already, or wished it had died before impact.


End file.
